The Public Utilities Commission is best known for its role as a regulator of monopoly industries...but it also has a lesser-known function as a promoter and planner. Today the P.U.C. sponsored a meeting in Belize City with the objective of expanding our energy horizons. Patrick Jones reports.

Patrick Jones, Reporting For years, the sugar cane industry has been an important contributor to the country's economy. But with falling world prices and disappearing preferential markets, Belize is faced with the daunting task of finding alternative uses for the sweet stuff grown in abundance in the north. While the production of electricity from bagasse is seen as one alternative, Chairman of the Public Utilities Commission Dr. Gilbert Canton says another possibility is to turn sugar cane into a fuel for automobiles.

Dr. Gilbert Canton, Chairman, P.U.C. "It's part of a project that we've been implementing for the last year called the National Energy Plan Project, with a sector diagnostic and policy recommendations. It has been completed and during that implementation, the subject of ethanol as an alternative to sugar production and also its use in the energy field in Belize and for export was always deliberated."

The deliberations extended to a one-day feasibility seminar, where participants from the public and private sectors sat down to discuss the way forward. According to Brazilian consultant Julio Borges, Belize has all the right ingredients to make the switch.

Julio Borges, Director, JOB Economics and Planning "Belize has molasses, you have been exporting molasses. Molasses has a low value added price, so the best thing to do with molasses is to produce alcohol and export alcohol at international prices. It will give better profits for your sugar cane industry."

But the idea of turning sugar cane into ethanol has been tried before in the late 8's. If the Jamaican company Petrojam could not achieve economic viability, why is the P.U.C. so excited about the chances for success now?

Dr. Gilbert Canton "But it seems now that the environment for it to occur in seems to be a lot more enabling at this point in time. So what we're hoping to do is look at it. This is no way a definitive statement that's going to come out of here today, but just a meeting of the minds, a brainstorming, a discussion, and then from there we'll see how we move forward."

Borges says one way of getting people to jump on the ethanol bandwagon is to show them how it will impact their bottom line.

Julio Borges "You can use this alcohol in blend with your gasoline. Instead of importing gasoline, you have been spending some money in gasoline imports. So you can substitute at a competitive basis and also the excess you can export to the United States."

"It's good for environment, it's good for employment, it's good for stabilizing the economy in rural areas. And the performance of the vehicle, the performance of the vehicle is better when they use ethanol."

Patrick Jones, for News 5.

Borges estimates that it would take no more than fifteen percent of the initial investment in the sugar factory to build the annexed distillery to produce ethanol. Last year the sale of sugar and related products earned revenues of close to eighty-nine million dollars. Projections for this season are for around one million dollars lower.

This whole effort toward alcohol production for fuel would not even be brought up if it had to depend on alcohol as the energy source for producing more alcohol. But no, it counts on oil based products for producing the sugar cane and then for distilling it.

This will just help distillers and sugar producers at the expense of more oil imports. They will also have the ability to add untaxed alcohol to the general economy by subterfuge.

It is possible for this alcohol approach to be viable IF the distillation were done via solar power, but you can bet that this is not the case. Oil-based products will provide the fuel. This is just another effort to rip off people.